Questions and Answers
by arianna99
Summary: During Jack's absence, Ianto learns to open up again. J/I


If you think this belongs to me, you obviously haven't read the disclaimers over every single other story ever

Questions and Answers (for lack of a better title)

„So let's say, just for one second, that I actually care," Owen starts one night. They're at the pub after a long, long day, because if there's nothing else to make the worst images go away, a vodka infusion may. And tomorrow, if the memories hit again, there's at least a good reason to throw up.

Jack's been gone three weeks now, and they know he left of his own free will. CCTV can work wonders.

Ianto looks up from his drink, eyebrows raised. "Okay," he says. "You actually care."

"What exactly were you and Jack?"

Inner wince. He'd seen this coming, of course, after the first shock of departure had faded off, information plunder to see if he knew anything special just because he and Jack had been…whatever they were.

Still, there's always hope that Owen may drop it. He doesn't want to talk. It's childish, yes, but for right now, what he and Jack had is his, something he can still cling to and something he doesn't have to share. "Humans. Most people are. Although you can't be quite sure about Jack," he answers, finishing his drink in one big swallow, which is probably a bad idea, because drinking loosens his tongue, and he doesn't _want _to talk about Jack, remember?

"Har, har. Absolutely hilarious," Owen says, fixing him with the stare he seems to save especially for Ianto, the one that says, "I'm older than you, so you'd best listen to me," the one that reminds Ianto uncannily of his older brother.

A moment of silence. "So?" prompts Owen.

Ianto sighs. "Why do you care?"

"I just said I was pretending to." This being Owen-speech for, "Of course I care, you idiot, but I won't _tell _you so."

He still doesn't answer.

"Because it's bloody weird, alright?" Owen asks after a drawn-out, uncomfortable pause. "He kills your girlfriend, you hate him. He dies, you don't say a single thing. He comes back, he kisses you, and then he takes off again, and you just sit there perfectly quiet and…it's like you're the one who doesn't care."

And now Ianto knows he's drunk too much, because he's angry and not caring who knows and slamming his glass onto the table. "Yes, because everyone has to broadcast their emotions like a bloody radio and make everyone else miserable while they're at it! Leave off Owen, it's none of your sodding business."

This time Owen sighs. "Listen, mate," and Owen only ever calls him mate when he wants something or thinks he's about to collapse. Maybe he is. "We're worried about you. You can't go around internalizing everything."

"Ooh, big vocabulary, Harper," Ianto says, still staring moodily at his glass. Owen places a hand on his shoulder. It feels wrong, forced. "Fuck off," Ianto snarls, pushes him off, and then he's the one who fucks off, just walks out, and who cares if Owen has to pay for both of them?

-

Jack's been gone a month and a half before they try again, but this time it's Gwen. She brings him a coffee (Starbucks, thankfully, because her attempts to make coffee would have made the entire conversation even more awkward), and it has too much milk and spices and strange things in it, but it's the thought that counts.

Only then she perches on the desk in the tourist information centre and pretends to be interested in his work. Sure, he's a full team member, sure, he probably knows more from the archives than she ever will, but right now he's doing paperwork, and nobody's interested in that. "How are you holding up, sweetheart?" She asks, and every time she uses an endearment like that, it just sounds kind of wrong to him, as if they have no place in her mouth, at least not directed at him.

He does his best puzzled look and asks, "How should I be holding up?"

Gwen looks at him with something like worry, or maybe it's pity. "I don't know, Ianto. None of us do, because you won't talk to us. I wish you would. It may be easier then."

She leaves after that, thankfully, because Ianto thinks he may start crying, and that's not something she needs to see. He knows she's probably right, but he's broken in ways she may not understand. He's already lost one lover to Torchwood, and he won't give up on Jack till he has some certainty.

He also knows that not giving up on Jack and driving himself into depression are two different things.

-

In the end, it's Tosh he talks to. Tosh, because while all of them know what it's like to lose a loved one, Tosh is innocent enough that she may still have some hope for him. Tosh, because she's not one to broadcast either, she's a private person, like him. Tosh, because it's so much less embarrassing with someone who can maybe empathize without pity or condescension. "I don't think we were in love," he says, over a glass of wine (red, Spanish, it used to be Lisa's favourite, and what with losing Jack all over again that makes him smile more than it hurts, and is it twisted that with Lisa, at least he has certainty of what happened and can now treasure what time they had? Jack taught him that, he thinks), "but I, at least, would have been, if there was a bit more time. He did sometimes tell me things, random tidbits. He's from the future, you know, he told me so when we first met. 51st century."

And Tosh just listens. Nods without appearing to censor anything he tells her, not when he tells her about the time Jack called over Christmas for phone sex while he was at his parents house, at dinner, no less, and he had to think up some ridiculous excuse for the phone call, not when he tells her about the look on Jack's face after John had died and how he'd cleaned Jack up and just held him all night while he shuddered through nightmares or memories, and with this job, who could tell the difference, and not when he says that he didn't want to talk to them, because those memories were his, and if he never saw Jack again, they were all he had.

When he stops talking, he realizes his cheeks are wet from tears. She hands him a handkerchief silently, and he smiles at her, weakly, but nonetheless. She smiles back and pulls him into a hug, and Ianto's glad she's not saying anything, because really, what can you say that doesn't sound hollow?

-

Jack's been gone two months and a week (no, he's not keeping track intentionally, but he is subconsciously, and he just can't turn that off) when he's able to look back on it (almost) without pain. The first few times he mentions something he did with Jack or something about Jack they didn't know, Gwen and Owen look at him with poorly concealed shock and hastily continue the conversation as if nothing happened. He watches them with amusement, and for the first time since Jack left, realizes he can manage, that he'll be fine.

They all loosened up gradually, and Ianto finally, _finally, _had the opportunity to let go of his stoicism (Tosh once told him her family would approve of him, he was so good at hiding himself), and maybe, just maybe, Jack leaving was helping them somehow, as a team, because when there'd been Jack around to concentrate on, he'd never quite realized how good it was to be able to make the others laugh at a joke or gasp in outrage at an anecdote (_are you just imitating Jack now?_ He asked himself. He ignored himself for the most part, though) or listen in faintly shocked, faintly horrified silence as he rattled off entire folders from the archives ("How on earth did you do that?" "I'm good at remembering things." "Are you really sure you're human?")

-

Jack had been gone three months and almost two weeks when he came back.

For a minute, all Ianto could do was stare at him. A thousand questions raced through his mind. (_Why did you go? Why did you come back? Where did you go? Did you think about me at all? Do you even care? When you left, did you know I was falling in love with you? Do you know how much it hurts to be left behind? Is it Gwen or me, Jack, will you ever decide?)_

He only asked one in the end. "Are you going back to him?"

And when Jack stared straight at him as he answered, "I came back for you," he knew immediately that if Jack still wanted, they'd pick up exactly where they left off, because Ianto's always been a sucker for romance, and if nothing else, Jack will always know how to do that.

It turns out Jack does want, and despite a homicidal psychopath, alleged radiation cluster bombs, a real bomb, an almost confession of love from Gwen (because if anyone can understand loving Jack, if she wanted to say that, Ianto could) and Jack picking up right where he left off with secrecy and lies, it was enough to make Ianto happier than he'd been in weeks.

-

Ianto doesn't know a few things.

He doesn't know that on the day of their first real date, Jack had two very interesting conversations, first with Owen, who gave a very impressive speech centring on, "So if you pull one of your lousy disappearing acts on him again, I will personally make sure you die the most painful way imaginable, and won't even care because hey, you'll come right back, because he's just gotten over that stupid mask he always used to wear, and he's had quite enough pain to deal with without you going and breaking his heart for what would be the third time now."

Jack grins and says. "I didn't know you cared. I assure you, my intentions aren't honourable in the least."

Owen didn't respond with the unconvincing "I don't. I just don't want to get bad coffee for weeks because you screwed up," Jack had been expecting. Instead, he got an intense stare and, "I mean it, Jack. The kid's been through enough as it is, and he was out of it for weeks after you left. Either you mean it and do it properly this time, or you just don't." It was about then that Jack decided he really wanted to know what happened while he was away.

Tosh slips in just before she leaves for the day, just before Jack goes to change for the date. In her quietly unassuming but deadly serious way, she impresses on him that a) Ianto is the youngest of them all, and b) he's been through more than enough with Canary Wharf and Lisa. So really, he should watch it this time, because now they all know what's going on, they don't want him messing it all up.

Needless to say, by the time they finally go on the date, Jack is more than a little nervous, which is rather hard to miss. Ianto smiles at him, places a hand over Jack's and says, "I don't think I've thanked you yet. This really means a lot to me," and that makes Jack feel more nervous than Owen and Tosh combined, the blind trust Ianto puts into him, because he's really not someone you should trust like that.

Ianto also doesn't know that when he presses a kiss to Jack's mouth and invites him up for coffee, Jack wonders if he's doing the right thing by Ianto, if he shouldn't just let him have another life, but ultimately knows that that's Ianto's decision to make.

-

There are more things that Ianto does know, though.

He knows that there are more difficulties in their relationship than there are holes in Swiss cheese. He knows that Jack is probably not used to exclusivity.

(It doesn't stop him being jealous when he sees Jack and Gwen together, but he does trust Jack, and he knows that loving her doesn't mean Jack loves him any less. Anyway, she's married)

He's also finally learned a lesson from Torchwood. That if they do have whatever it is they have, for now, then it's no good wasting it on doubts, because who knows if tomorrow will bring an invasion of Daleks or alien slime in the rain (he still hasn't gotten that suit clean), and who knows how long he'll be around to enjoy it.


End file.
